


but i'm a fire and i'll keep your brittle heart warm

by demiboy_demon



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:54:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28412730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demiboy_demon/pseuds/demiboy_demon
Summary: When the gaang find a boy frozen in the snow during their journey to the North Pole, they invite him to join them. They never expect that he has his own secrets, and his own past to bring to their found family.
Relationships: Sokka/Suki/Zuko (Avatar), background Kataang - Relationship, suzukka - Relationship, zukki - Relationship
Kudos: 21





	but i'm a fire and i'll keep your brittle heart warm

The snow was cold. Zuko had experienced cold before, but nothing like this. This cold was the sort of cold that seeped through your skin and muscle down into your very bones, freezing you from the inside out. 

Maybe it was made colder by the fact that Zuko had no coat; he didn’t exactly have time to grab it as he ran. If it hadn’t been for uncle... Zuko wasn’t sure if he would still be alive now. 

He wasn’t sure why Zhao had tried to kill him. He wasn’t sure how long he had been running or how Uncle was doing back on the ship. But he was sure that if he didn’t take cover soon, his uncertainty would be the least of his problems. 

Banishment was a fair punishment for his crimes; the scar and humiliation, too. But death? Death for speaking out of turn, Zuko thought, was a little too far. 

His legs stopped working first, then his arms. He curled into himself to try and preserve his warmth, but it was no use. As he succumbed to the cold, he thought he saw his mother walking through the snow. He tried to call out to her, but with ice-coated lips and frozen vocal cords, the best sound he could make was quieter than a yelping platypus bear. She vanished a moment later, anyway. 

‘A mirage,’ Zuko realized, ‘A trick played on my mind by my own delirium.’

That was the last thing he thought before his eyes shut and he drifted out of consciousness.


End file.
